A. Schulman (A. Schulman) Free Cash Flow : $38 Mil (TTM As of May. 2018)

A. Schulman Free Cash Flow Chart

A. Schulman Annual Data
	Trend	Aug08	Aug09	Aug10	Aug11	Aug12	Aug13	Aug14	Aug15	Aug16	Aug17
Free Cash Flow		Get a 7-Day Free Trial					57.15	78.05	17.58	96.89	67.85

A. Schulman Quarterly Data
	Aug13	Nov13	Feb14	May14	Aug14	Nov14	Feb15	May15	Aug15	Nov15	Feb16	May16	Aug16	Nov16	Feb17	May17	Aug17	Nov17	Feb18	May18
Free Cash Flow	Get a 7-Day Free Trial															27.20	25.01	20.07	-45.77	38.32

A. Schulman Free Cash Flow Calculation

Free Cash Flow is considered one of the most important parameters to measure a company's earnings power by value investors because it is not subject to estimates of Depreciation, Depletion and Amortization (DDA). However, when we look at the Free Cash Flow, we should look from a long term perspective, because any year's Free Cash Flow can be drastically affected by the spending on Property, Plant, & Equipment (PPE) of the business in that year. Over the long term, Free Cash Flow should give pretty good picture on the real earnings power of the company.

A. Schulman's Free Cash Flow for the fiscal year that ended in Aug. 2017 is calculated as

A. Schulman's Free Cash Flow for the quarter that ended in May. 2018 is calculated as

Free Cash Flow for the trailing twelve months (TTM) ended in May. 2018 adds up the quarterly data reported by the company within the most recent 12 months, which was $38 Mil.

* For Operating Data section: All numbers are indicated by the unit behind each term and all currency related amount are in USD.
* For other sections: All numbers are in millions except for per share data, ratio, and percentage. All currency related amount are indicated in the company's associated stock exchange currency.

A. Schulman  (NAS:SHLM) Free Cash Flow Explanation

Free Cash Flow is very close to Warren Buffett's definition of Owner's Earnings, except that in Warren Buffett's Owner's Earnings, the spending for Property, Plant, and Equipment is only for maintenance (replacement), while in the Free Cash Flow calculation, the cost of new Property, Plant, and Equipment due to business expansion is also deducted. There, Free Cash Flow is more conservative than Owner's Earnings.

In Don Yacktman's calculation of forward rate of return, he uses Free Cash Flow for the calculation. Yacktman explained the forward rate of return concept in detail in his interview with GuruFocus. Yacktman defines forward rate of return as the normalized free cash flow yield plus real growth plus inflation.

This is what Yacktman said in his March 2012 interview - when the S&P 500 was at 1400:

If the business is stable, this calculation is fairly straightforward. For instance, on the S&P 500 we would normalize earnings. We would then calculate what percentage of those earnings are not reinvested in the underlying businesses and are therefore free. Historically, for the S&P 500, this has been just under 50% of earnings. Currently, we expect the S&P to earn about 70 on a normalized basis, a number which is far below reported earnings due to our adjusting for record high profit margins. $70 X ½ / 1400 gives you a normalized free cash flow yield of approximately 2.5%.

The historical real growth rate of the S&P 500 (companies) is about 1.5%. Assuming an inflation rate of 2.5%, the forward rate of return on an investment in the S&P 500 is about 6.5% today (2.5% free cash flow yield plus 1.5% real growth plus 2.5% inflation).

For the growth part of the Forward Rate of Return calculation, GuruFocus uses the 5-year average growth rate of EBITDA per share as the growth rate, and the growth rate is always capped at 20%. For the Free Cash Flow we use per share data averaged over seven years. The reason we use seven years is because research shows that seven years is the length of the typical business cycle.

Therefore, as of May18, A. Schulman's Forward Rate of Return (Yacktman) % is

* For Operating Data section: All numbers are indicated by the unit behind each term and all currency related amount are in USD.
* For other sections: All numbers are in millions except for per share data, ratio, and percentage. All currency related amount are indicated in the company's associated stock exchange currency.

Be Aware

Free Cash Flow within a report period can be affected by management's decisions of capital spending. Therefore, it is important to look at long term when it comes to Free Cash Flow.

A. Schulman Free Cash Flow Related Terms

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A. Schulman (A. Schulman) Business Description